Charging system issue

So, I've got too many electrical gizmos on my bike for the charging syetm to keep up.

I've got a new combination Reg/Rec from Z1E, and the early three phase alternator.

What I'm looking for is suggestions. I dont want to delete the things I have added. I guess I can get LED turn signals and tail light. Any other ideas? I guess the glaring thing is the Dyna-S. Do the Dyna coils suck juice too, or is it just the ignition unit? I can go to a Kawi ignition I suppose. I can't see the Acewell pulling down much juice, and the O2 sensor unit only pulls down like 15W during normal operation.

I'm going to check out the resistances and everything on Thursday ngiht, thats the next time I can get at the bike. I just have a regular multimeter. One thing I realized is that my engine ground may not be the greatest since I painted the engine. So I'll sort that, and then check resistances, and then see if the issue goes away.

I'm not a dummy when it comes to electrical stuff, so feel free to get very technical. I'm going to go through my harness and check for any leaks, everything is in pretty good shape wiring-wise though. So in my mind its either a problem with a component or a problem with too much load.

Its already been suggested over on kz650.info that my reg/rec might not be up to the job. Its a Ricks Electrical unit I got from Z1E.

T_Dub,
First you need a good battery, so test it. Make sure it is full of electrolyte, Charge it on slow overnight, out of the bike or the cable disconnected. Measure the voltage after it rests for an hour. You should see like 12.6 or above if it is good. You can pop the caps and measure voltage in each Cell. Take the Volt meter and place the black lead on Neg, and use the red to reach down into the cell, and submerse in the liquid. Each cell should be the same, exactly, battery voltage divided by 6.
Then reinstall and start the bike, and find the voltage across the Batt terminals, Both @ Idle and 4K RPM. You need to see 14v-14.6 when at 4k.
Then most of the problems with charging output is poor connections and voltage drop in the wiring. Possible to be a component though, like a stator, but check the wiring as even a new stator won't put out correctly with a wiring issue.
So the 3 phase stator, measure each of the combinations of the three yellow wires for both resistance, should be .7 ohm, and then running at 4K RPM, you should get 56 ACv on each combo. You may have a bad connection at the Stator, where the wire harness is soldered to the actual coils, or along its route to the R/R. Any wire that looks stiff, discolored, will need replacing. You can test it a couple of ways, one is voltage drop. Measure the voltage on each side of a suspected area, and record the difference. As it should be Identical, any drop is bad. .2 of a volt well that would be normal, .5v you should probably repair that, any more and well you have to fix it for the current to flow. The same applies to all the wiring, but check the wire from the R/R to the battery + and the Main Fuse Feed.
You can take your DVOM, and put it to the 10 AMP DC scale, Then test individual circuit loads. The head light and your ignition will be the 2 highest. Changing as you suggested to LED, the biggest gain there would be your head light bulb.
So if your System is capable of producing the rated 20 Amps, and the wiring is letting it get to the electrical, and you test and add up your total system requirement Amp load, you should have 15-20% left for reserve capacity.
Post up all tests you've done so far and results etc.

Yup, I'll do all of that and report back. Can't get to the bike til Thurs.

My battery is good, it read 12.5V when I took it off the other day. Its a couple months old.

I'll test all the other stuff, clean up my engine ground and see what I get.

It's not a huge drain, I was riding for an hour after my O2 sensor started going weird, and everything was still working. I tried to start it after I got back from that hour ride and the starter sounded like the battery was low. Before I went out it sounded fine. It seems pretty borderline to me, could just be a small issue.

I would put a voltmeter on the bike so you can monitor it while riding.

Details on the field coil type alternator problems. Can skip it.

The regulator just controls the current to the field coil. You can bypass the regulator and put full power to the field coil and see if that improves the output of the alternator. That would mean a possible regulator problem.

One problem with most designs for the field coil type alternator, including the Kawasaki's original regulator design, is that they allow the field coil to burn away a lot of power if the motor is not turning fast enough to produce a net output of power.

For example, taking the extreme, if the motor is not turning, the field coil is just burning away 30 watts or so. Obviously, energizing the field is a waste of power. Under this condition, a good regulator would kill power to the field. When the motor starts turning, the alternator will start producing power, but only when the alternator spins fast enough, and starts producing over 30 watts does it break even. Below that, a regulator design would minimize power to the field coil in order to reduce the net loss.
home.comcast.net/~loudgpz/GPZweb/RegRec/GPZvRegExciteField.html

Incidently, it's sad that manufacturers won't spend the extra $5 or so that it takes to put in a limiter for the field anytime the alternator is operating at a net loss. The solution is simple: just add 3 diodes to the rectifier to make a secondary output to power the field. Then the field gets fed by the output of the stator instead of the battery. This means the alternator will only take a minimal amount of power away from the battery when the alternator is operating at a loss.

Warning about leaving the ignition switch on.

Because most regulator designs fully energize the field when the bike is not running, but the power is on, it is important to not leave the ignition switch on when the motor is not turning. This goes double for the Dyna S ignition as well. It is fully powered up whenever the igntiion is on, but the motor is not turning.

The point of all of the above was to provide background for the alternator test. That is, if you switch the green wire of the field coil directly to 12v (after disconnecting it from the regulator), you can fully energize the field coil and run the bike to see if the alternator itself is capable of keeping up with the demands of the bike. (Leave the rest of the rectifier/regulator hooked up.)

The 77 3-phase system is pretty good when functioning properly. With stock ignition and lights, I've seen them attain 14v at idle.

Sounds good man. I'll give it a go if the simple stuff turns up nothing.

Is this a Slip Ring/ Brush set up on the Rotor? If so the Brush, slip rings may be worn.

Motor Head wrote: Is this a Slip Ring/ Brush set up on the Rotor? If so the Brush, slip rings may be worn.

No slip rings or brushes B.S like on a Honda. Kawasaki used a very ingenius field inverter (or rotator, actually) as the rotor. The field coil is stationary inside the rotor. The rotor rotates between the field coil and stator.

The earlier KZ400's and 750-twins used a similar setup.

So I got the correct resistance on each of my wires, I think. About 1 ohm between the yellows, around 5 between the field and ground, around 1.5 megaohms between the yellows and ground. I dont think anythings wrong on that front. I'm going to put in new handlebar switches, a new main wiring harness, and install LED blinkers and tail. After that if I still have issues I'll take off the O2 sensor. If I still have issues after that I'll try a OMP reg/rec.

Next chance I get I'll hook up the field directly to the battery and see what she does.

If you bought/ installed this one from Z1enterprises,



Then connecting the Orange wire directly to Batt + should full field it. This will cause max output to be reached and should only be done briefly for a test for output. It would be best to be able to measure the Amperage and Voltage coming out of the Red and Green wires from the R/R under load, all electrical on. A amp clamp would be nice, but you can use an In-line Amp meter also. Either of these two circuits having poor connections back to the battery would cause voltage, and current loss. I don't know what the rating is on that replacement R/R but would like to think it can handle 20 amps since its supplied for your bikes system.

I'll give it a go, make sure my connections are good and I'll let you know what heppens. Might be next week before I get at it though, I'm on a ten day on, four day off shift at a project site 100km from home.